Despite warm weather, Snowden finishes 14th at WPIAL Championship

Friday

Riverside senior Adam Snowden accomplished what he had set out to do at the cross country WPIAL Championship race. Qualify for states for the fourth year in a row.

"At the 2-mile I was 23rd or 22nd and I passed a couple people with little less than a mile to go and then I passed the 15th-place guy with like 200 metes left," Snowden said. "Finished around pretty much where I thought I would. I knew I would be right on the edge. I know there's a lot of fast guys. A lot of the guys I know are really good were still in single A instead of AA so I knew I had a chance at the top 15 and I finished 15th."

This was before Snowden looked at the scoreboard. He actually was clocked in at No. 14 with a time of 17:48. Snowden said that considering how much warmer it was than the past couple weeks, he couldn't have asked for a better race. The warm weather did concern him a little bit, however, after he watched all of the girls' races.

"I knew it was supposed to be warmer this week so I drank a lot of water yesterday and throughout the day at school as much as I could. I took in more and more water as the day went on as much as I could so I could stay hydrated," Snowden said. "Especially after seeing some of the girls, it made me a little nervous. A couple girls collapsed."

Snowden put up a good time Thursday, but a few previous races didn't have the same good result including the MAC tournament. Snowden said that, to him, the WPIAL race was the only one that mattered.

"This is the one that decided if you go to states and once you're there, there's really nothing after that. This is the race you come to," Snowden said. "It was a little more emotional, too, because I'm going to miss all the guys. I wasn't emotional before but I am now. I almost cried today."

Emotional or not, he's excited about states and as a seasoned veteran, he's just going to have fun.

"For me states is more of a fun race when I go. Like I said, there's nothing to do after that. I still work hard and try to do the best I can, but if I don't run my best race I'm just like, 'meh doesn't really matter.' "

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